A variety of training apparatuses and instructional equipment has been developed for mechanical and electrical systems. Many of these training apparatuses involve the use of equipment which can be used for testing circuits, for example, or educating the student in basic electrical wiring.
Present Applicant, Larry C. Crawford has developed a modular training system for instruction concerning electro-mechanical control systems in his copending U.S. application Ser. No. 666,977, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,623,312. The interchangeable modules comprising this system form the basis for the present invention. Other developments in the area of electro-mechanical training equipment are described below.
Ackerman, U.S. Pat. No. 4,316,720 has developed a maintenance training device which allows students to learn hands on maintenance and training of electronic systems using simulated components.
Schager, U.S. Pat. No. 3,237,318 presents an apparatus for simulating the operation of an electrical power plant. The equipment used in the Schager invention show the student actual components of a generating plant so as to be able to follow the sequence of operation of the system.
The majority of the training systems do not permit the student to experience working with a basic electro-mechanical system which may be modified to provide a more complex system than may be encountered at a job site.
Apparatuses, such as that of the Schager invention, utilize large pieces of equipment which are fixed in position and may not be modified to represent different electro-mechanical systems.
Other teaching and testing devices have been developed such as that of Gudelis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,213,253; Wahl et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,198,768; and Hill et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,112,593.
This latter invention of Hill's is used for the construction as well as testing of electrical circuits.
Other training aids have been developed which utilized removable electrical components including that of Alcosser, U.S. Pat. No. 3,540,135 (1970). Alcosser's Educational Training Aid discloses a circuit board containing removable electrical logic modules which when wired to the circuit board properly helps students develop the fundamentals of Boolean algebra. Boissonneault in Canadian Pat. No. 1,143,936 discloses a training device which permits electrical components to be movably interchanged and secured to a panel to teach the fundamentals of electrical circuits.
Within the electrical and mechanical systems fields, there has remained a need to provide a portable training system which would allow the students to interchangeably construct and troubleshoot an actual control system which could be done in a classroom setting. More importantly with respect to the present application, there has remained a need to provide a training apparatus to teach students about the computerization or computerized control of the heating, cooling, ventilation or other electro-mechanical control systems. Technicians and engineers learning about modern environmental or energy systems must also learn how computers are used as an essential component in these various control systems and must learn the programming and operational functions thereof.
Another important need of teaching the operation and troubleshooting of electro-mechanical systems is the need to have that system be adaptable for the increase of complexity and vary according to the capabilities of the system for more advanced students.
The present invention serves to meet these needs by establishing a programmable modular training system which provides students at all levels with the ability to experience hands on training of actual working control systems at the programming, operation and troubleshooting levels.